Disclaimer: always the same.
Chapter 9: That Day
--
Odd was pretty miserable. And that was being said lightly.
He felt like he was going to be sick to his stomach. He could still see Sissi standing at the end of the digital void and now this image was mingling with the memory of her bloodied nose and Odd found himself wincing subconsciously.
Now she really did need that nose job he was always mentioning.
Oh man, there was no simple fix to this-- was there?
He didn't want to have to get on his knees and beg her forgiveness.
But maybe he was just over reacting… Maybe it wasn't as bad as it had looked. Yeah… Who was he kidding? He broke that poor girl's nose. Sissi-- poor-- he snorted at the thought. She still deserved an apology though.
Then that explained why he found himself standing in front of her dorm room. He knew to anybody skipping class that happened to stroll by: he looked pretty pathetic.
His hair lacked its usual perfection, pushed into a messy mimic of what it normally was. His clothes were ruffled and running his fingers over his face he could feel the dark circles under his eyes from restless slumber.
He must of looked pretty stupid, standing there so stiffly but knocking on the door so lightly.
"Sissi?" Was it really any surprise when she didn't respond? No, he didn't think it was. Even if she happened to be there (which she probably wasn't), he knew for a fact she wouldn't dare answer.
"Sissi?" It didn't stop him from knocking a little harder this time. "I need to talk to you."
--
He waited until he heard a voice--
"DELLA ROBBIA!"
Oh, crap! Jimbo.
Odd didn't even bother looking back at large man just made a mad dash for escape. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do but his head was still all tangled up from being sick and encouraged him to hop down the stairs and swing over the guard railing.
He landed with the grace of a cat-- on his feet, in a slight crouch, fingertips brushing the ground.
Jim never stood a chance to catch up and Odd wasn't giving him any time to.
Odd gripped his stomach and fumbled over his footing as he exited the dorms. He had thought he had recovered but the world was spinning and his stomach gurgling fitfully. Nearly falling, he gripped the nearby garbage pail and hurled.
Shame that all he could do while wiping his mouth was think… food gone to waste.
He was on a mission.
This was pathetic.
Not him.
It was all she could think when she heard the awful noise and looked over. It served him right. He ruined her nose and now he was ruining her alone time by just blundering around out here.
It shouldn't have bothered her. But Sissi found she just couldn't ignore Odd anymore.
She hated it but she watched and noticed his condition with softening anger.
It was SO annoying!
Quickly she looked away and moved off the bench to her feet. She wasted enough time crying, she had to be strong now, for her visit.
He must of heard her though because he suddenly spun around.
He looked startled and a very subtle shift in his stance alerted her to that previously never noticed fighting skill. Because he didn't look all ready to jump and lunge at the nearest attacker she probably never noticed such a fact before.
It was made to look like a causal and very lazy stretch-- his feet parted slightly and his knees bent and then seeing no threat he stretched backwards with a yawn.
She didn't want to know what he'd do if she was considered a threat this line of thought just made her all the more uncomfortable remembering her injured nose. She had never even thought he was capable of such…
Hate.
It still gave her shivers.
He was a lot smaller then her-- she shouldn't be scared but she was trembling.
It was cold, it was still cold!
And Odd hated her.
No, she corrected herself softly; he hated someone by the name of 'Xana'. Not her and that's why he was smiling that hesitating smile as he stumbled after her. Her feet had started carrying her unknowingly towards the school's exit.
"Sissi. Wait." He sounded serious.
She was just seeing all sides of the strange boy that she had never noticed before and now she just wanted things back to normal. To hate and be hated, in that soft, harmless way. How she would of loved to insult him right now.
Just call him scrawny but something was holding her back.
"I want to apologize."
She curled her fingers with sharp urges to strangle… so sudden. Even if he said that in the sincerest tone he could muster, she wasn't ready to even listen. He was ruining her life!
"Well I don't want to forgive you Scrawny." Did it hurt him? She sure hoped so.
She had enough of his teasing, joking, mocking… the silence that followed her comment was bliss. If not for the extra thud of footfalls she would of thought he gave up and went back inside.
"You look… awful."
What?!
She spun around watching his eyes widen the moment before she even slapped him.
That was not the thing to say.
She looked down at her mismatching outfit and frowned at her lack of attention this morning, what if Ulrich saw here like this?!
She heard Odd's footfalls had stopped and so turned to glance back at him skeptically. He looked shocked, was it really such a surprise? He seemed think so, touching his cherry red cheek as his mouth tightened into a slight grimace.
"You hit hard Elisabeth dear."
She slapped him again.
Why?…
Why'd he have to do this to her?
No one called her Elisabeth but her family and dear was a term of endearment. Ulrich was worthy of the title dear and she had as well, at one time, been deserving. It was never in that teasing sarcastic drawl.
She heard him scowl. "What was that for?…" Of course he didn't understand, she'd never hit him for it before and he was always teasing: Sissi Dear, Sissi Dear, Elisabeth. Did she really never expect him to put the two together?
Even so she couldn't regret her unexplained actions, not when her nose was throbbing.
She wasn't going to talk to him, anymore.
Did Sissi not know how awful she looked? Was that even possible for such a conceited girl?
She looked like she had been beat down and strung up to dry.
It made him at least feel deserving of the first slap.
It looked worse then he expected-- her nose. It was this dark swollen purple, that made his favorite color looking hauntingly ugly between her two sunken black eyes.
And it was his fault-- internally he winced as he now kept his distance back from her.
She probably wouldn't want him anywhere near touching her so a pat on the back or a hug was out of the question. Shutting out the easiest form of apology.
He didn't want her to hit him again even though he probably deserved it for payment on her nose.
"I don't suppose I could just buy you an ice-cream and we could call this even?" He ventured weakly. Already he knew that suggestion would fail. He could buy her a new shirt when he spilled ice-cream on hers but this was different-- he couldn't buy her a new nose. But…
Seriously what would it take?
And why wasn't she talking to him?
--
"Sissi?" No. He could not take a hint today.
He couldn't bare tense silences, they were the route of all evil: broken friendships and busted families. He always had to fill that space with sound if nothing else, so he continued now. "I'm trying to-"
She glanced back, eyes narrowed causing him to swallow hard, subconsciously.
She was not happy.
He began to fiddle with a loose thread at the bottom of his shirt. Anything to avoid that piercing gaze. "I just… I shouldn't of…" He didn't know why that glare made him so unsettled. Usually making Sissi angry made him laugh.
His stomach would bubble with amusement but now it was doing anything but that-- flip flopping was what it did now. He waved his hand out at the air, like trying to swat away a fly.
"I shouldn't of hit you. I have no excuse…" Except being delusional with fever.
She wouldn't understand.
"And I'm…" It was easy, as easy as insulting her, he just had to say it. "I'm- sorry. I'm really sorry. Really, really sorry. I'm soooo sorry…" He made it sound like he had killed someone close to her, and that was pretty ridiculously sorry.
He squeezed his eyes shut and continued to mutter: I'm sorry. He just couldn't help himself and couldn't stop. He had no idea why. He hated the girl in front of him but he couldn't stop apologizing!
--
"You want me to forgive you Della Robbia?"
He nodded numbly. His ranting at a stand still. Was he hanging on her every word? He hated it. He could no longer take this situation as a joke and it felt like a piece of his personality had momentarily died.
"Then stay the hell away from me." That cold tone… his breath was misting but even so the wind brushing past couldn't compare to the chill lining every syllable in that sentence.
She might as well have slapped him again.
He felt… bad.
He wanted to brush the feeling off and smile again but his mouth wouldn't comply instead twisting in the opposite direction. It was Sissi, the selfish girl he despised, who cared what she thought of him! He should be happy that she never wanted to see him again!
He should be…
Happy.
No. No. He… he just couldn't. "Fine! I hate you anyways Sissi dear." But his voice trembled with something other then hate.
She knew that was a lie, the moment the words escaped his lips. This wasn't hate.
The way his face scrunched up and his hands fisted at his sides-- this was something else entirely and for all her knowledge she couldn't read the usually so open boy as he stormed off.
But it wasn't hate… not from him.
Odd didn't try to pull away when he felt Jim's arm hook around his own.
He'd been caught and this time he wouldn't try to elude whatever Jim had planned for him. The man was a joke though, ranting on about conspiracies. How him, Ulrich, Jeremie, all of them were involved in some secret plot.
Being as Jim had no idea what was really going on, Odd would usually have to hold back a laugh. His throat felt dry though and he didn't think anything would smooth it right now.
He had half the mind to ask Jim for a drink before he carted him off to where ever they were now headed but against his usual judgment he kept his mouth shut.
So he was left at the doorway when the secretary shooed Jim away.
Odd felt ridiculously lightheaded when the voice invited him in. He would have done so joyful just for the entertainment but now he only did it because his feet carried him forward.
He wasn't sure what to say to the principal: comment on the 'nice' weather outside, ask how his day was going, even just crack a joke to lighten the mood. The atmosphere was so heavy in here that you could suffocate something... Unsuffocatible?
Odd sunk unceremoniously into the offered chair. He really felt out of sorts.
What was wrong with him?
--
"Della Robbia." Odd was being addressed just for the sake of making sure he was actually listening. The principals tone was laughable but Odd's lips were sealed. "I needed to have a word with you."
Odd thrummed his fingers across his knee with little energy. "About Sissi?" He asked focusing on nothing in particular.
The man coughed. "Why yes… Elisabeth…" He was leaning in over his desk and Odd had half the mind to kick him backwards. It was a idea he restrained for a continued grip on his sanity.
"If you ever touch her again I will inform the police."
He gripped his knee. Right. He expected, he didn't know… a lawsuit. Some sort of punishment in the slightest. Why was Delmas letting him off so easy?
Delmas had sat back now reorganizing his pen jar. "When I first met my wife… I must apologize but I had thought she was someone else. See… my friend and I had this running game to sneak up on each other and tackle each other to the ground."
He smiled fondly at the memories. "It must have been quite fun back then and I had expected that when I heard her behind me. And I had turned around and tackled her-- it was a surprise for both us."
"But you must understand… What I am trying to say is, sometime a teenage boy just can't control himself and I just want to assure this will never happen again so I am forbidding you from being anywhere near my daughter."
Odd blinked rapidly. Startled, confused… Did Delmas have idea what he had said? Well… it was just a nicer way to put what Sissi had said: stay the hell away.
"Now if you'll excuse me…" Was Delmas crying?
It was time for Odd to make his departure then. And not ready for another 'talk' he did so silently.
Odd sat in dim awareness during lunch.
He was trying and failing to shake himself out of this funk he was in by stuffing his face with food. All the while faintly aware of the go abouts around him.
His friend's were chattering lightly-- Jeremie and Aelita shamelessly flirting without even knowing it and Yumi smiling at something Ulrich said. Lovebirds. To caught up in each other to notice anything else, like Odd's brooding mood.
Then a group of two wandered past with their lunch trays whispering softly:
"What's wrong with her?"
And, "Who cares?"
They were talking about Sissi, her crying was so faint but her two 'friends' made it all the more noticeable by asking rather loudly: What's wrong?
Odd would hate if his whole life was an announced drama fest like Miss Perfect over there.
It was bad enough she was having some sort of breakdown, did the whole school have to know? It made him sort of angry to think she should have all that negative attention. Just let the dumb girl sob.
Odd shook his head, these thoughts needed to stop circling. "You going to eat that?" He asked gesturing at the leftovers on his roommate's tray.
A quick glance was sufficient. "Help yourself." Was the response.
Odd felt himself scowl, as he pulled the tray over-- dumb Sissi… The expression was out of place on his usually joyful features.
And his friends noticed.
"Is something wrong Odd?" Jeremie asked looking over the top of his laptop but Odd had already resorted to staring off into space, as he shoved more food in his mouth.
Why was she even crying?
"Earth to Odd. Calling Odd." Ulrich had leaned over and waved his hand in front of the unresponsive boy.
It was probably something stupid but it wasn't like he could go over there and see.
"Odd?!" He blinked rapidly at his friends startled expressions and pushed Ulrich's snapping fingers out of his face.
He set his fork down on the unfinished leftovers and stated quite bluntly. "What's wrong with Sissi?"
They were exchanging looks. This wasn't good.
"Didn't you know?" Obviously not. "Today's the reunion of her mother's death."
Her mother's death? Her mother was dead?
Odd buried his face into his palm.
She was mourning a loss and all he had to say to her was: I hate you.
(A/N: I was going to stop there. -Snorts- Lucky for all of you I didn't.)
"Get lost!"
Finally managing to slam her door on her 'fan club's' faces Sissi took a deep withering breath.
It seemed like forever she was forced to suffer their constant muttering. Now the whole school knew she really was a… sissy. And it was more bothersome then she would have ever thought because she did care what people thought of her.
It hurt to know she was looked upon that way.
Hugging herself she turned and flinched when she heard the crinkling of paper. Slowly she bent down and picked up the small note. It was carefully folded in what once might have been considered a crane-- before she stepped on it.
Faintly she felt her heart flicker. What if it was from Ulrich?
She was falling back onto old crushes. Who cared if she couldn't have him?
Maybe, just maybe, this was a letter admitting his secret love for her.
--
Nope.
It wasn't.
(A/N: To bad for you though. I stopped here.)